Men’s Tennis Playing in ITA Kick Off Weekend in Chicago

Saturday, January 28

Evanston, IL

2:00 p.m.

University of Memphis

#10 Northwestern University

Photo by: Joe Murphy

Men’s Tennis Playing in ITA Kick Off Weekend in Chicago

Jan 27, 2017 | Men's Tennis

Tigers open against #10 Northwestern Friday afternoon.

By: Tammy DeGroff

MEMPHIS – The University of Memphis finished last season as one of the top teams in the country and as such, was invited to participate in the ITA Kick Off Weekend for a fifth straight season. Memphis will play in the Kick Off Weekend in the regional hosted by Northwestern University, starting Saturday. Memphis will face host and number 10 ranked Northwestern at 2 p.m., Saturday, then will face either #18 ranked Stanford or a Georgia Tech team that is receiving votes in the latest ITA coaches' poll, on Sunday.

ITA Kick Off Weekend – Northwestern Regional -- When/Where
Where: Evanston, Ill./Combe Tennis Center
When: Memphis at #10 Northwestern -- Saturday, 2:00 p.m.
How to follow: Live Video ($3.95/day) at NUSports.com/Watch
or live scoring (free) HERE
Sunday consolation match at 10 a.m.; championship match at 2 p.m.

About Memphis (2-0)
    Memphis is off to a 2-0 start, picking up wins over Big 10 foe Michigan State, 7-0, and SEC foe LSU, 6-1, last weekend in its opening weekend.
    Andrew Watson, Kai Lemke, Chris Patzanovsky, Jan Pallares and Felix Rauch all went 2-0 last weekend, while #35 ranked Ryan Peniston split his matches at one singles. Pallares' wins at five singles pushed him in to the team lead in singles wins with 11,while Peniston and Watson each have 10 wins so far this year.
    After a fall schedule that saw numerous doubles combinations, the Tigers settled in to duos last weekend. Lemke and Watson were 2-0 at one doubles, while Pallares and fellow freshman Matt Story came back from 4-1 down against LSU to clinch the doubles point win with a 7-5 decision at three.
    With the Racquet Club of Memphis converting to the ATP Memphis Open set-up, the Tigers will play just one home match in the next month after this weekend's ITA Kick Off Weekend. Memphis is home Friday, Feb. 3^rd, for a match against UAPB, then plays on the road at Indiana, Dartmouth and Harvard before returning home in March.

About #10 Northwestern (4-0)
    Northwestern climbed to #10 in the country following a trio of wins last weekend. The Wildcats are 4-0 and downed three visiting teams in Evanston last weekend. Northwestern upended then-number seven TCU, 4-2, then downed Louisville, 4-2, before closing the day with a 7-0 sweep of IUPUI.
    Strong Kirchheimer leads NU with a 2-1 mark at one singles and is ranked #26 in the country in singles. He is now 11-5 on the year. Konrad Zieba is 3-1 at two singles and has teamed with Sam Shropshire for a 2-0 mark at one doubles. Shropshire is 1-2 at three singles with a ranked win over #101 Jerry Lopez of TCU in last Friday's dual match win over the Horned Frogs.
    In doubles play, Northwestern is 4-0 in matches at one doubles and is 2-0 in matches at three. The lone doubles match loss for the Wildcats in four matches has been a single match at two doubles.
    Memphis leads the overall series with Northwestern, 3-0, but the two teams have not squared off since 1978, an 8-1 Memphis State win.

About #18 Stanford (2-0)
    Stanford opened its weekend with a pair of home wins, downing Eastern Washington, 4-0, then edging BYU, 4-3, in a non-conference clash. Sameer Kumar battled for a straight set win at one singles in the win over BYU, 7-5, 6-4 and Michel Geneder won his match at two, 6-0, 7-6 (3). Stanford, who had lost the doubles point to BYU, also added wins at three from Jack Barber, 6-3, 7-6 (0) and Brandon Sutter, 6-1, 6-2, to come back for the victory.
    If the Tigers and the Cardinal face off in the ITA Kick Off Weekend in Chicago this weekend, it would be the first meeting in program history between the two teams.

About Georgia Tech (1-1)
    Georgia Tech comes in to the ITA weekend with a 1-1 mark. The Ramblin Wreck dropped a match to in-state foe Georgia, 5-2, then swept Tennessee, 7-0, in a pair of home matches.
    Christopher Eubanks leads Georgia Tech with a pair of wins at one singles and a 12-3 overall mark so far this season. Andrew Li is 1-1 at two singles and Carlos Benito is 2-0 at three singles. Benito and Eubanks have one finished match at one doubles, a loss, while Eubanks teamed with Phillip Gresk for a loss to Tennessee at one doubles to the #26 ranked doubles team in the country.
    Georgia Tech is opening the weekend with a neutral site match against #18 ranked Stanford. Should Memphis and Georgia Tech meet on Sunday, it would be the first meeting between the two programs.

Coach Goebel's thoughts:
"It's really a fun event. It's a good way to get the top teams to play each other early in the season and it mirrors the NCAA outdoor championships. We play the first two rounds at regional sites, then the winners of those rounds move on to the Round of 16. In doing that, every team is really good.

Northwestern is going to be a tough opponent. They are off to a really good start. They also have excellent doubles and we'll be playing at their place, and that'll be our first road test of the year, but I'm really, really excited to see how we handle it.

Our conference has done such a good job of getting more and more depth each year. Right now, we have six teams ranked in the top 40 in the country and have four in the top 25 polls (2 ranked, 2 receiving votes). There's a lot of good tennis going on in our conference and I feel like we can compete with almost any conference in the country now. We had five teams in the NCAA last year, and it's early, but we could get up to six teams in this year. We've just got to stay healthy."